Scariest Day In My Life So Far!

So now that I've calmed down I can blog about it.

On Monday I asked Ben what he wanted for his birthday and he said a new BMX bike. Well, we have 2 perfectly fine BMX bikes sitting in the backyard that just needed new tubes put in them. So I told him that Dad would fix one up for him. So, Joel took one to work and fixed it all up. But, this bike unlike the other ones he's ridden has hand brakes. So, Joel brought it home and showed Ben and he liked it. Josh got on it first and rode it a second and told us that the brakes were bad on it and Joel said the front ones were bad but the back ones where fine. So Ben got on it and rode around for awhile on the side of our house. Now, there is NEVER any traffic on the side of my house because there is only one house that faces that street and a cute little old couple lives there and I don't think they drive. So it is always covered with boys playing or riding around on it. On Ben's old bike he liked to get going as fast as he could on that road and then slam on his brakes right before he went into the other road to see how well he could skid out. But his old bike had the back brakes where all you had to do is push your pedals backwards and you stop. So, when he was racing down the street to try to skid out on this new bike with hand brakes he couldn't stop. He went right into traffic and my neighbor, Tonya, was driving he son to school in her suv. She tried to stop and Ben tried to stop. Ben's eyes where huge as he tried to back pedal to stop and the remembered that it has hand brake and tried them too. It didn't work. He even tried to put his feet down to stop but everything went so fast. I was standing there, Joel and Josh were standing there and none of us could do anything. It was like slow motion where you saw every detail and knew what was going to happen but couldn't do anything about it.

Ben slammed right into the passenger door when his best friend, Rayce, was sitting. Luckily Ben didn't have time to try to brace himself so he didn't brake any bones. But his stomach slammed right into his handle bars and he fell to the ground. We all raced right to him and he hopped up trying to act like nothing happened because he was embarrassed and thought he would get in trouble. I took him in the house and checked him out and made sure he wasn't bleeding and to see where he hurt. He said it was just his stomach which didn't make me feel any better. Joel's brother Jared was riding off a bike jump when they were little and crashed and they thought everything was alright but it ended up that he punctured his spleen and had to get surgery! So I was still freaking out. Ben on the other hand wanted to go to school. Joel stayed outside to talk to our neighbor and she left to take Rayce to school and then came back to check on Ben. Ben loves being at her house and is over there if they aren't over here. After a minute Ben said he wanted to go to school because they were doing Valentine's Day stuff today. Well, I let him go knowing that I was going to his class in an hour anyway to help out. But I should have made him sit and cuddle with me all day and never move. But that would have been only good for me. So he left, Josh left and Joel left and I went in my room and curled up in a ball on the floor and cried like I never have before. I couldn't stop replaying it in my mind and thinking what could have happened. I kept thinking how stupid I was for having Joel fix up an old bike when I should have just bought him a new one. No amount of money could replace one of my kids so if I needed to spend money on a new safe bike then I should have done it and not thought twice. I wanted so badly to go back to sleep and wake up having it all be a bad dream but it wasn't and all I could do is cry. David was up stairs playing on his Leapster oblivious to it all. I called Jan and then my Mom and then decided that I'd better stop crying so I could go to the school. I was so worried about Ben. I wanted him to say that he wanted to go home with me so we could curl up together and watch a movie but he didn't. When I got there his teacher wondered if he was o.k. because he hadn't said a single word to anyone and was just somber. I told her a very short version of what happened because I didn't want to cause a scene in his class and told her to have him call me if he needed anything. I asked him if he was o.k. and he said his stomach still hurt but that he wanted to stay. So I told him to call me if he wanted to come home and I'd come get him. He stayed and I went home to curl up again and see if maybe David would take pity on me and curl up with me and comfort me. But as I was pulling up to the house JoEllen pulled up with a big Diet Coke for me and when we went in Joel was home. I was so glad. I just started crying again. I couldn't talk about it without crying. I'm still tearing up right now thinking about it. Joel decided that I needed to get out so he took David and I to Cafe Rio for lunch. Which helped but as soon as we got home our other neighbor called because she heard about it and was wondering how he felt and I started crying all over again. I kept thinking that I needed to call Tonya to see how she was but I knew I would just cry and that would make her feel worse so I didn't. I also wondered how Rayce was doing and hoped that he saw Ben at school so he'd know everything was alright. After school was over Ben was fine. He said that his stomach didn't hurt and was running all over the place. That night Joel and I took him to the store so he could pick out a new bike that had back pedal brakes and a helmet. While we were there we got him a pillow pet and anything else he wanted because I felt so bad. When I went to bed I thanked the Lord for keeping Ben safe and was so emotionally drained that I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The next day was Ben's birthday and I knew I needed my sleep.